And a multitude discover this light in their souls, and join the prophets and pathfinders! Everybody goes abroad looking for untrodden paths; from all directions comes the cry: Here and there, to the right, to the left, is the right way! Do we not only too often see self-willed and self-satisfied thinkers, whose shortsighted conceit gets within the four walls of their study puffed up against God and religion, offer us for holy truth the fanciful products of their narrow brains? Do we not see, only too often, champions of shallow reasoning, without discipline of thought and without ethical maturity, recommending their undigested efforts as the wisdom of the world? Youthful thinkers there are in numbers, each of whom claims that he at last has succeeded in solving the world riddle; they offer us new theories of the world, new ideas on ethics, on law and theology, for a few dollars per copy or less. The holy abode of truth has become the campus for saunterers, each eager to displace the other so that he may be sole proprietor, or at least a respected partner. Day by day new solutions of “problems,” “vital questions,” or at least “outlines” of them; new “views of the world”; new forms of religion and of Christianity for the “modern man”; “reforms” of marriage and of sexual ethics, and so on. Truth had not been discovered until the newcomer puts his pen to the paper. Every one is free to join in. Yea, more, he may not only join in, but lash those who do not applaud him. According to this notion, nothing has a right to exist, no “sacred prejudice” may be claimed once this self-appointed representative of science takes the field for “research.” Behold the Christian truth, it has stood the test of centuries: but it cannot resist these scientific freebooters, they rush over it with banners flying. Severe speech would here be in order. A painful spectacle, these doings of modern thought in the sacred precincts of truth. “Put off the shoes from thy feet; for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground,” we imagine to hear; yet this sanctuary of truth has been made a profane place of bartering. ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐